A Good Man
by YoungAthena
Summary: Post-New York. Agent Phil Coulson of SHIELD had been many things in life, but he was dead and there was a raw wound left behind. A little exploration of what that might have looked like. Oneshot. Clint-centric. Hints of BlackHawk.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**A/N: This is just a little one-shot that came into my head last night and bugged me until I wrote it down this morning. It's kind of how I imagined what happened post-movie to go with regards to Agent Coulson. I'm not sure if it's any good but I hope you all enjoy it! Please review and let me know what you think of it!**

**Y.A.**

* * *

No one had thought to tell Clint until a day after New York. He honestly didn't blame them, between the fight for the city and the chaos that had set in when the battle ended, it hadn't been a priority. He wasn't a fool though, he had known that something wasn't right ever since Natasha 'woke' him – because that's what he preferred to call it, being woken from a terrible nightmare – and Coulson hadn't been there, which was strange because since he had become his handler 10 years ago Coulson had always been there. In person, in his earpiece, on a phone, in writing, in any way he could be Coulson had been a definite presence in his life. But now? Nothing. The silence was deafening.

Eventually he had just asked. On the way from one debriefing to another he had grabbed Natasha's arm in the corridor and asked her.

'Where's Coulson?' he demanded.

She fixed him with a steely look, but one permeated with emotion that she reserved solely for him. It was a look that said 'I'm sorry', 'We tried', 'It hurts', all the words that she could never fully articulate, that she had been programmed to never allow to slip out of her mouth.

'Gone.' And that was enough to let him know that all was lost.

'Did I….?' he couldn't even bring himself to ask the question. He had caused so much damage already, he didn't know if he could live with himself if this was on him. After all the things that he had done, all the blood that coated his hands, this would be the one kill that would break him, that much he knew.

'No. Loki. Not you.' She reached out a hand to gently cup his cheek and unconsciously he leaned into its warmth, closing his eyes in relief or pain, he couldn't really tell, before the hand was withdrawn and he was cold again. They continued as normal and went on to their debriefings with the other Avengers and didn't mention it again but, as expected, that night Clint felt Natasha slip into his bed and wrap her arms around him, holding him tight to her. He felt her heart beat in time with his own and thought about how many people he had lost. His parents, friends, his brother and now the man he had thought of as a better brother, the only real constant he'd ever had in his life. All he had left was this woman who was lying in his bed, holding him like a child and waiting for him to cry. So he did, allowing the tears fall for all the people he had lost. She just held him closer and thought no less of him and in the morning she challenged him to a sparring match in which she beat him thoroughly, just to assure him that nothing had changed. For that he was grateful. Everyone else treated him with kid gloves which was infuriating, and sometimes he wished that he could just Hulk-out and unleash the full weight of his inner rage upon everyone, but instead he sat in silence and closed that part of him away like he always did.

Which all just brought them to this point. Because traditionally, when there is a death there is a funeral and people gather to bid farewell to a loved one. Clint hated funerals. He had been to too many, caused too many and he especially hated this one. The tie that Natasha had forced him to wear seemed to tighten around his throat like a noose as the service went on and he pulled at it until Natasha batted his hands away. He glared at her and he could feel Tony's smirk at their interaction.

It was a small service, just the Avengers, Pepper Potts, Fury and Maria Hill, but it felt right just for them to be there as they were the ones who had known Coulson best and missed him the most. It was there in a corner of Arlington Cemetery where no one would think to look that Agent Phil Coulson was laid to rest. Steve stood stoical and strong, hand to his heart as the gun salute rang out, the good soldier he would always be. Tony kept his sunglasses firmly on his face throughout so that no one could see his eyes which had a tendency to betray his real emotions no matter what he made the rest of his face do and Clint didn't miss his slight flinches as the guns fired. Thor gripped Mjolnir harder and looked away. Bruce played with his glasses, his tie, his jacket, a piece of paper in his pocket, anything to take his mind off the hints of green that stained his peripheral vision every so often. Natasha said nothing, her face betrayed no emotion, but she slipped her hand into Clint's and squeezed his hand so hard that he thought she might break it.

Clint did nothing and said nothing. Not at the start when the priest began the service and inside he scoffed because Phil had never been remotely religious, nor when the guns went off and felt like they pierced his soul, not even when the soldiers had folded up the flag across his coffin and handed it to **him**. He surprised himself, even, with how still he could be, how quiet, how calm. Although as they started to walk away he caught Steve drop Phil's precious trading cards into the grave before they filled it and, damn, that near did it for him.

Afterwards, they held a wake for Phil, just the six of them, in Tony's newly rebuilt tower. They drank copious amounts, all in his memory as Tony constantly reminded them, and told stories of when they had met Phil and how he had touched their lives.

'He watched over me as I slept. It sounds creepy, but it was somewhat comforting, to know someone was there…'

'He threatened to taser me if I did anything…no one's ever given me a kick up the butt like that. He kept me in line, I guess, when no one else could…'

'He let me live when everyone else but Clint said that I should die…'

Different stories, different experiences, but they all ended with the same sentiment, 'He was a good man.'

Clint could drink to that.

He continued to say nothing, preferring to hear them talk about Phil and they let him, which surprised him. They respected and understood him enough to not force him to talk when other lesser people might have done. Instead they plied him and themselves with alcohol until even Thor was getting a little bit tipsy.

'JARVIS!' Tony cried out in glee, 'we need some tuuunes!' and the whole room was filled with loud music. 'Now this…this is a wake! To Phil!'

They partied hard in his honour, amused because they knew that if Phil had been there he would have made a half-hearted attempt to make them stop before having one drink and leaving them to it. Clint remembered that Phil had like Cosmopolitans and how he had constantly mocked him for liking a girls drink and felt hollow. Why such a trivial detail made him feel that way he didn't know, but next thing he knew he was at the bar shaking up some Cosmopolitans for them all. He had to admit, Phil had had a point – they were really good. Not that he would ever have admitted that to Phil, not that he could now.

The night ended in a shootout on the roof. Clint and his arrows against Tony and his suit. Thor and Steve would launch various objects into the sky and Tony and Clint battled to hit it first. A vase, a statue, a stuffed animal (much to Thor's consternation), a box of PopTarts (half of which Thor managed to stuff into his mouth before Steve grabbed it from him and threw), a picture of Fury. Clint was obviously the better marksman and got nearly all of them first, except for the times when Natasha, blatantly in cahoots with Tony, had 'mistakenly' got in his way. The last object to be thrown was a canister that Bruce quietly pressed into Steve's hand before leaning over to Clint.

'Hit it with the explosive arrow,' he murmured and Clint nodded. He didn't know what it was but he was good at following orders (sometimes, anyway). He pressed the button on his bow that attached an explosive tip to his arrow as Steve pulled back his arm and used his super strength to launch the object into space.

Quick as lightning Clint had drawn his bow and let the arrow fly. Straight and true it flew and pierced the canister high above their heads, exploding on impact. Tony hadn't even attempted to hit it.

Bruce was a genius. Whatever had been in the canister reacted with the explosives in the arrow tip to form what could only be described as the most awesome fireworks display in the world. Bigger than any 4th of July celebrations that he had ever seen, the fireworks seemed to shoot out of thin air over and over, filling the entire space around the tower, getting bigger and brighter before reaching a crescendo of bright blues and reds and yellows and greens and ending with the SHIELD symbol hovering over their heads before dissipating.

Eyes wide as saucers they all turned to gape at Bruce, who merely shrugged and smiled sheepishly.

'Figured Phil deserved something a little spectacular…' he mumbled.

'Huh, you and I are going to have a very serious discussion about what you can and can't cook up in my labs young man,' Tony grinned at him, no doubt formulating new plans and possibilities for what the two could achieve together.

The roof was where they spent the rest of their night, watching the stars until the morning came and the sun rose over New York, bathing them in its soft glow. Clint's heart tightened as he considered how Phil would never see a new day once more or feel the warm sun on his face. Natasha, ever in tune with his unspoken feelings crept closer to him as they sat on the roof and leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. They both agreed that love was for children, but what they had was something deeper than that and he drew strength from her physical presence to say the three words that he had been unable to articulate until that point.

'I miss him.'

Quiet, understated, honest.

They could all drink to that.


End file.
